


Heave Away

by merriman



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Character Death Fix, Fix-It, Gen, Introspection, Ocean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/pseuds/merriman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck Hansen should have died in his Jaeger at the bottom of the ocean. Instead he may die in an escape pod on the ocean surface. And that just sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heave Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [curiously_me](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiously_me/gifts).



> Thank you Su for taking looks at this while I worked on it. You rock.

The last thing Chuck remembered was Marshal Pentecost hitting an emergency escape pod button on Chuck's side of the console. When his pod surfaced he knew he was lucky to be alive. By all rights he should have been blown to bits by Striker Eureka's payload. He should never have made it. But the pod rode the waves, pulled well out of danger somehow. And of course it was a Mark V escape pod, radiation shielded, buoyant and stocked with rations and water, a solar still and a parachute that doubled as a sun shield. What it didn't have was any way of telling anyone where he was and while the sky was clear when night set in, Chuck never was great with astronomy. Not that it would have helped him get word back to anyone.

For the first two days he held out the hope that someone would look for him. Someone would think maybe he got out of there before Striker Eureka went critical and cleared a path for Mako and Raleigh to finish _his_ bomb run. He set up his still and did an inventory of his rations and cursed the useless radio and tracking beacon. Then he sat back and thought about what he would do when he got home. First he'd tell his father he loved him. Seemed the right thing to do after something like this. Sometimes a man just had to suck it up and say what needed saying. Then he'd spend some time with Max. Take him for a walk or something. They hadn't gone for a walk in years. The first two nights in the escape pod/life raft Chuck fell asleep feeling Max's comforting weight against his leg, even though it was actually a bag of protein bars.

By the third day Chuck was entertaining some seriously unpleasant thoughts. They got worse as the day went on and the sun beat down on him and he drifted with the current to fuck knew where. That last kaiju had been huge. A Category 5. If the plan hadn't succeeded, who was to say something else, something bigger and meaner, more than one something, hadn't come through by then? There were no more Jaegers. Failure or success, they'd blown all they had. Maybe a kaiju would come up right underneath him and that would be that. But no kaiju surfaced and still no choppers or boats came looking. Chuck inventoried his rations again, more conservatively this time. If he was careful he had another two weeks' worth. If he was creative and lucky he could try to catch a fish and gut it, working off of a single childhood memory of an ill-fated fishing trip with his father that had ended with a fishing hook accident and a visit to the hospital for six stitches in Chuck's thumb.

During the fifth night, Chuck watched the water. There was something in it, shining in the darkness. Every so often a fish would dart through and millions of little bio-luminescent plankton would shimmer in its wake. Chuck watched that for hours, even daring to dip his own hand in a few times just to watch the glow wash over his skin. The kaiju all had glowing bits. Probably something similar to these tiny little creatures. Chuck wiped his hand off on the side of the pod. By the time he had, the glow was gone and so were the fish. He was alone again in the dark. Even the moon was gone to just a sliver, leaving the stars for company. But then, Chuck had spent plenty of time alone as a child. He was okay with being alone.

After a full week, Chuck had found a way to improvise paddles using pieces of his suit and some support struts from the pod. It was still floating without the struts in place so he was pretty sure they hadn't been necessary anymore. The frustrating part was not knowing which direction to go in. He hadn't paid that much attention in class when it had come to the ocean currents in the Pacific. With so much time on his hands he spent a full three hours regretting that before he picked up a scrap of parachute and flung it over the side of the pod, watching which way it drifted. At least he could try not to go against the current and completely waste his time.

He dreamt of Striker Eureka at the bottom of the ocean. In the dream Striker Eureka was at the breach again, kaiju were closing in and Marshal Pentecost was telling him the plan. When he woke, Chuck had one paddle clutched in his hand, the other wedged against his hip. They'd cleared a path for the lady. For Gipsy Danger. For Mako Mori. Hell, even Raleigh Becket even though he was no lady, that was for damn sure. Pentecost had been lying about the drift. Or maybe just mistaken. Because thinking on it now all Chuck could see was Mako's face. A series of faces. Mako as a little girl, smiling up into the sun. Mako arriving at Pentecost's house. Mako at Jaeger Academy graduation, badges for highest honors pinned to her uniform. Mako with tears in her eyes as she asked to be dismissed. And then his own memories of her had cut in with Mako outside the office, hands fisted as Raleigh punched him. Mako watching without expression as Chuck got his Jaeger assignment and she'd been left benched.

When all he had left were five protein bars and a tiny bag of dried fruit, Chuck tried his hand at fishing. He wasted hours putting a rod and hook together and came up empty as the sun set over the water. The line drifted, a vain hope for some acknowledgement that Chuck still existed. He watched it in the waxing moonlight and couldn't even muster up a sense of anger about it. He was too exhausted for anger. It did seem vastly unfair that he'd helped to save the world (if indeed the world had been saved - Chuck was leaning towards yes, which was at least satisfying) and then been forgotten, left to float in his escape pod for weeks. All things considered, though... no. It was definitely unfair. His father probably would have said that life is always unfair. That living meant working yourself to the bone to break even. Chuck tipped his head back against the edge of the pod and looked up at the moon. He was going to run out of food before he ever hit land.

The first sign Chuck had that he was in more serious trouble than he wanted to believe was when he saw a boat on the horizon. It was clear as day and headed in his direction. Only as it drew closer did he realize it wasn't there at all. He'd been seeing a figment of his own imagination. He stared at the spot where the boat wasn't for two hours before it truly sunk in. He'd been in the sun too long. He hadn't been eating enough. He was dehydrated. Chuck retreated under the parachute fabric and spent a full day ignoring the water outside.

Choppy seas did in the solar still for good two weeks after Chuck surfaced. The pod itself was still intact and waterproof, but the still went over the side in the middle of the night and once rescued was damaged beyond repair. The sheeting was torn and he had nothing with which to patch it. The only option was to give up his sun cover. It was a shitty choice. No cities would fall if he made it wrong. No lives were at stake but his own and Chuck stared at the fabric for the rest of the day, lips dry and parched, skin burnt and peeling. It was easy to decide to do something stupid and self-sacrificing for the sake of millions. It was impossible to decide to do something smart for himself.

The hallucinations didn't stop with the one boat.

"You're in deep shit now," his father drawled from where the still had been. Where its remains still were. "I taught you better than this."

"Screw you," was all Chuck could manage at first. When the memory of his father didn't disappear, however, he found he had plenty to say.

"What did you ever teach me about getting lost in the middle of the fucking ocean?" he demanded. "What did you teach me that wasn't about Jaegers and kaiju and the fucking PPDC? All you ever wanted was to get me in a Jaeger. All you ever cared about was getting back in one yourself, you selfish bastard."

There was no answer. Of course there was no answer. His father wasn't there. He was just a memory scrap from the drift, dredged up because they'd spent so much time in each others' heads. Chuck figured it was probably a good thing his father had always been careful about not sharing his first co-pilot's memories or else he'd have his uncle Scott in the pod too and it was crowded enough with just Chuck himself.

"You're not thinking," Herc said after a good long stretch of silence. "You've got memories from me, so you're a damn fool if you don't figure out how to use 'em."

And then he really did feel like the biggest idiot in the whole world. His father was in the RAAF. He'd paid a hell of a lot more attention in the classes they'd taken. He'd lived a whole life before Striker Eureka. And he knew enough about the electronics included in the escape pods to know if there was anything salvageable. The image of his father faded as Chuck dug into his memory, searching for every trace of what his father knew. It took hours, but at last he found what he needed, nestled in a memory of his father's, building a radio in his bedroom as a child, and from there a whole web of memory unfurled, tracing a path of electronic hope.

It took three days, but there was something to be done. The radio was toast and the beacon was trashed, but together there was a chance he was going to get a signal through. Chuck wrapped the tattered parachute around himself like a poncho, shielding his head, and hunkered down over the cobbled-together radio, forcing himself to a patient and careful scroll through all of the channels they'd been drilled to remember. Downed Jaegers, civilians in danger, they all had frequencies.

Most everything was static and Chuck cursed the damn thing and threatened to toss it over the side of the pod. He'd been up and down the frequencies sixteen times when the static changed, just a tiny bit. There it was. A bare hint of someone's voice. He peered at it, making minute adjustments until the voice grew clearer.

"This is Marshal Hercules Hansen. Hong Kong Shatterdome. Looking for sign of Ranger Charles Hansen. Repeat: This is Marshal Hercules Hansen. Hong Kong Shatterdome. Looking for sign of Ranger Charles Hansen. Any sign." It wasn't that strong. His father's voice faded in and out, static drowning out one word in five. But it didn't matter, because he was repeating the message again, voice hoarse and tired but repeating nonetheless.

Chuck fumbled with the radio, switching it to broadcast and wincing when he could no longer hear his father calling for him.

"This is Ranger Charles Hansen," he said into the tiny microphone, holding it close to his lips and hoping his voice was remotely recognizable. "Adrift in the Pacific. Coordinates unknown. I'm out of food. Almost out of water. Dad..." He couldn't afford to cry, not with his water so low, but it felt like he was anyhow. "Please find me."

He switched the radio back and struggled to find his father's frequency again.

"Chuck? Chuck..." He hated that tone in his father's voice. The desperate, choked up, holding-it-in tone. And yet it was the best thing he'd ever heard. The signal strengthened for a moment and Chuck could hear other people in the background, his father calling to them, mobilizing choppers and rescue boats, getting Tendo to triangulate his position somehow.

"Son, we're coming. We'll find you. Hold on."

In his escape pod, miles above the bottom of the ocean where by all rights he should have died, Chuck Hansen leaned back and smiled. They'd saved the world and he was going to get a chance to live in it.


End file.
